How to manage your Software Development with Pipefy

Whether you’re a developer, a product manager or a professional of any other area, if you’ve ever got involved in software development you’re probably aware of how big a difference it makes to have a well structured and well managed process.

Using a process management software, as Pipefy, to help run and manage your software development can make all the difference between total chaos and a productive and efficient team.

What is software development?

Software development is the term most commonly used to refer to all processes involved in creating and managing applications/software, such as programming/coding, testing, and bug tracking.

Interpreting the concept literally, software development is the process of writing, modifying and analysing an application’s source code, but most people consider the entire process of creating software, from working with the idea and the conception the app/software through running tests and making it available.

If you choose to consider all the steps, your software development process may include a number of different stages: backlog, development, prototyping, maintenance, etc. Considering it’s a process that has many specific phases with specific needs and instructions, it’s a great idea to count on a process management software, such as Pipefy, to help manage all details of your software development.

Why use Pipefy’s Software Development Template?

Pipefy’s Agile Software Development Template begins with a phase called Backlog – this is where all incoming development requests will arrive. On Pipefy, each task is represented by a cardcreated using a simplified form where you’ll need to input the following information:

What do you need to be done? – A brief description of the request: everyone on the pipe will be able to see it without having to open the card.

What’s the type of request? – Choose the type of request from the available options: bug, new feature, performance improvement, UX improvement or task (dev ops).

Do you have more info to share? – Details about the request, to complete the description and/or give instructions on how it should be done.

Need to attach something? – If you need to attach a file (or more than one) to fulfil this request, this is the field to do so!

All new tasks arrive in the backlog phase. On this phase, before the task can move forward and enter the sprint, you’ll have to inform a few things about it: person in charge of the request, priority and due date.

After you do that, you’ll need to select the requests that’ll be moved into the current sprint: just like any agile model, the requests on the sprint are the ones that must be done during a selected period of time, let’s say, a week.

We’ve included a few helpful information on this phase and, to learn more about it, all you have to do is click on the “i” icon next to the title.

The next phase is doing: you should only move the tasks that are currently being worked at. It’s very important to respect the limit of one card per team member at a time. That ensures you’ll always know what each of your team members is doing, real-time.

The cards in the doing phase can me moved to 2 different phases: on hold and staging. Cards on the on hold phase are the requests you’ve already started but, for some reason, had to left unfinished – you may be missing an information, a response from someone, or just had to stop what you were doing to do something more urgent.

You can determine a time limit for the requests to be on hold by setting up a late alert for the phase: that way, people will be notified via email every time a card exceeds the time limit on the phase.

The staging phase is the last active phase of your pipe. All the requests the team completes during the sprint must stay there until the team sprint meeting, when they can be moved to the live phase.

When the cards reach the end of the pipe, you’ll move them to live or archived if for some reason you had to leave them aside.

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Written by
Isabelle Salemme, Product content manager at Pipefy. She uses her extensive Pipefy knowledge to write informative pieces teaching users to make the best of Pipefy.
Besides being responsible for all product-related content, she's an avid reader, a coffee lover and a professional photographer.